My reading of “The Book Thief”

 At our school we all got an assignment where we were suppose to follow some instructions. I did so and the results are below but before that you should read what the instructions was so you actually have an idea what i am doing: 

1. Write an entry on your blog. Call it my reading of…..(name of book) 
   
2. Make a table and in the left hand column write 4 different paragraphs from the book from each of the following topics: Theme, setting, plot and character development.
3. In the right hand column write why you chose that particular paragraph and its significance in the book
4. End the blog post by writing a small summary of your impression of the book! Make it out as a review and post it on Amazon! Would you recommend this book to others? Link to the review on your blog.
5. Use this rubric to self-assess and grade your performance

- The book i am writing about is a book called “The book thief.

 

Paragraphs	My «evaluation»
Theme: «The food,» he reminded her. «Find the food. And cigarettes, if you can.» Both items, however, were the last thing on her mind. She was home, amongst the mayor’s books of every colour and description, with they silver and gold lettering. She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her. Her feet took her to the right-hand wall. She knew the one she wanted-the exact position- but when she made it to The whistler’s usual place on the shelf, it was not there. a slight gap was there in its place.	Theme: This paragraph takes place in the mayors house just after Liesel has climbed true a window ready to steal some «food» for her and Rudy. Her original plan since the start was to steal a book. And what i found so amazing in this paragraph is how Liesels reaction to Rudy’s comment «The food» was, I truly believe that in this paragraph is the place where you really see Liesels true love for books. To say it simple: When you think about book’s more then food you’re seriously passionate for books. In addition to showing Liesels love for books it also displays the theme of the book. As I have interpreted the theme of the book is the power of words which really gets well presented in this chapter. As i read from another blog I would also say that «death» takes a big part of the theme. After all the narrator of the book is death so…
Settings: After lodging his form at the Nazi headquarters on Munich street, he witnessed four men throw several bricks into a clothing store named Kleinman’s. It was one of the few jewish shops that was still in operation in molching. Inside, a small man was stuttering about, crushing the broken glass beneath his feet as he cleaned up. A star the colour of mustard was smeared out the door. In sloppy lettering, the word JEWISH FILTH were spilling over at their edges. The movement inside tapered from hurried to morose, then stopped all together.	Settings: This paragraph does actually say quite much about the book settings. It is not super clear when and where this incident takes place but, if we think of which place jewish hatred was very strong we could relate to Nazi Germany in the period 1930 to 1945(which is the time period the book is written in). As written it takes place on one of the more central roads of the book, Munich street. Something you really didn’t want to be in Germany was a jew. But if one person was so unfortunate to be a jew in Germany at that time people could pretty much do whatever they wanted to you without getting punished.
Plot: The book thief had struck for the first time- the beginning of an illustrious career.	Plot: One of the first actions that Liesel does is steal the Gravedigger’s handbook. As described this is her first out of many thefts to come. Even thought this is a one-sentence paragraph it really does describe what the whole book is about. The book isn’t only about stealing book’s it also has a lot of side stories but all these small stories leads to a book getting stolen.
Character development: He came in every night and sat with her. The first couple of times he simply stayed- a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, «shh, I’m here, it’s all right». After three weeks, he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man’s gentleness, his there ness. The girl knew from the outset that he’d always appear mid-scream, and he would not leave.	Character development: This is probably one of the first and most important incidences in the book. First of all this incident leads to a great friendship between Hans Huberman and Liesel. Later on in the story the visits that Hans Huberman payees turn into «classes» where Hans tries to learn Liesel how to read and write. Another reason for this being such a huge changing point is because Liesel start to change her personality (her love for books grow stronger) and we get a better insight in how Hans Huberman really is. What we can say is that this paragraph starts a development process between two characters.

 

 

 

 

The book thief is in many ways a good book but, in all honesty i have to say it is not my kind of book. The book is written in a very sad and dark manner which really starts to play with your emotions. Even though i knew how the book was going to end (it got «spoiled» in  the beginning of the book) i really felt a little sadness in me. In addition to the sad settings that can be viewed from a positive or negative viewpoint the whole story is pretty slow going. Even though the book is written in a great manner and has some of the better english i have seen their is still something missing. At this point i can’t really tell you what is missing but i can tell you  that in general the book is to over sentimental and heavy handed on the symbolism. To make it clear i have to inform you guys that i like reading books like Game of thrones, Lord of the rings and the inheritance cycle aka. Fantacy books where war is raging and there are battles everywhere. These books are more focused on adventure, excitement, happiness/(good endings) and action, basically all of these book series are fantasy books which is the opposite of the somewhat realistic book «The book thief». It really wasn’t a bad book but i think it should rather be read by grownups rather then teenage boys like myself.

How to PowerPoint :)

PowerPoint?

Sorry for the pictures not coming up having a hard time trying so please be patient and hopefully it will work out. (You want to see the full tutorial you should check out our book that will soon be on the marked).

PowerPoint (© Microsoft Corp.) is a wide used presentation program  which is usually used for different types of conferences, school lectures, Business lectures and so on. The purpose of using a PowerPoint presentation in school is to get the people interested. When you have made a PowerPoint people will have pictures to watch, they will have headwords or sentences to read, and they will have you to listen to. All this contributes to making your presentation much more fun and interesting, but there are still problems that can occur. When you make a PowerPoint make sure to not make it to flashy or fancy. When you have a PowerPoint presentation you still want to have the attention on you so people actually get what your saying. The problem with having a super fancy PowerPoint presentation is that the attention is on the PP (PowerPoint) and not you. Beneath you will see a written example with pictures on how to make and set up a PowerPoint, but please use the information wisely and don’t prop your PP with pictures and texts.

 

The first thing you will see when you open PowerPoint is this:

Now, as you can see I have surrounded the important areas that you should look at with red marker.

 

Nr1. Unfortunate my PowerPoint program is in Norwegian because I live in Norway, but I can ensure you that if you open PowerPoint in your language it will look the same. Well, the first circle (1) marks the "new slide" button. When you click this you get a new slide, this makes you able to put on more information on the PP and this is why this button is important to remember.

 

Nr2 and nr3. The second marked area has the same thing that it is in word as I am quite sure you have used before. It is kind off like a panel where you control how your letters and writing look like. The third circle marks the place you can click to put your PowerPoint in full screen mode = Presentation phase.

 

Nr 4 and nr 5. In the boxes that the nr 4 is pointing at it says "click to add a title" and "Click to add a under title". This is where you can write and put in different types of texts. Basically this is the place where you want to add your title and your information/key words. The nr 5 just points at a place where you can just add random things like arrows, lines, squares and stuff like that = (not that important).

 

 

Nr1. This is the toolbar in PowerPoint. As you can see I have cut out some of the parts in the toolbar, this is because these tool options are not necessary to use to make a good PP (unless you are a pro). What you should concentrate on are those who are not marked = "home" - "put in" - "layout" - "Animations" - "Look true". The home thing is the one described above. "Put in" is used to put in stuff that you might have saved like pictures or different types of figures, diagrams and so on. In the "animation" tab you are able to configure the animations of your picture and text. In "look true" you can configure the language you want your writing to correct after.

 

If I were going to tell you all the functions on how to use PowerPoint it would have been on several pages. This is why I am mainly writing about the basics of how to use PowerPoint. It is up to you if you want to follow this guide and experiment or try to learn  it alone. The last thing I will tell you about is how to add pictures into your PP. When you see a picture on the web the easiest thing to do is copy and paste. To copy you have to click the right mouse button then click Copy:

http://victorenglish.wordpress.com/

Demotivating and the power of teachers

(This is another contribution to the book we are writing in our class, it is a “follow true” from a text about motivation. I also wrote something about teachers because that was some of the assignment.)

On the last couple of pages you have read about what gives a person motivation. As always there is two different perspective on something, in this situation we have good and bad motivation. Bad motivation is obviously the opposite of good motivation. This is where the problem starts, even thought people know what bad motivation is they don’t know that they are using this  “bad motivation” unconsciously every single day. I can say for a fact that once in your life you have set a barrier that only exists in your mind and no one else’s. For example when you see a hot girl/guy at your school, workplace, bar or park you think that the person is to “hot” for you to go talk to him/her. I can tell you that even the hottest guy or women in the world has had a thought like that. The reason for this incidence being demotivating is because you think negative about yourself, which effects your self esteem.

School is super important, this is why you as a teacher, student or even as reader should know what is demotivating and motivating in school. As you might know this is not a book about girls or guys but a book about school and that is why this section will be more focused on school. By now you should know what demotivation is, if so one of my goals has succeeded. School is as I said earlier very important, what is also very important is the teachers. Teachers can be the biggest source of motivation you will have in school, the bad thing is that teachers can be really demotivating to. Knowledge is something teachers are full of and it can be used for both good and bad things. Usually in most situations teachers know their students from the inside to the outside meaning they know what sides of the different students that needs to be improved. Of course it is important for a teacher to not give a better grade then the person deserves and only give the person nice feedback/comments. The teachers also has to tell the students that everything is possible if he/her gets a bad grade and at least try to encourage. If a teacher tells one of her students that there isn’t any opportunities to get a great result, the person is most definite to loose motivation which is a very bad thing.

Reliable sources

What is a reliable source? Well, a reliable web source is a source you can say is trustworthy. The big question is how one person can say that the web source one is on is trust able.  In my opinion you can never say that a web source is ever 100% trustworthy. How can you for example know that Jesus was born on 24. Desember, that’s right you can’t say it for a fact, but that is what we are learnt to believe. Back to web sources, what you can do is analyze your source and check if it is legit, correct, incorrect or whatever you want to check. What you should ask yourself when you are going to analyze your text are these questions.

• Do I know and trust the site publisher?
• Is the publisher reputable?
• Is the sponsorship clear?
• Why should I believe the site author, what are their credentials?
• Is this a professional looking web site in terms of graphics, file formats, active links etc.? 
• Is the site selling, educating, buying or advertising and thus creating a bias? Dates & How Current is the Information?
• Based on what I know, how believable is the information?

 <http://cnr.usu.edu/quinney/htm/faq/faq_q=2083> http://etc.usf.edu/techease/win/internet/how-can-my-students-know-if-a-web-source-is-reliable/

(These questions are taken from the links above for educational reasons. Would also recommend those websites if you want to learn more about reliable sources.)

 

You might ask yourself why it is so important to check if the web source your on is legit.  If you are a student it is very important because the information you take from the web might affect your tests and grades. If you search “World war two” in Google you get a lot of different sources. Mostly the sources you go into are written by different authors. Think of it this way, you read a text where the WW2 is written from a Nazi perspective and one from an American perspective. The texts would be completely different and give you completely different facts. Because of this you and especially students should look on web sources with a critical view so you don’t get the wrong intension or one person’s perspective on a case. BTW, be especially critical to blogs because they usually contain personal thoughts and information.

Change of plan

Recently I started on a project about Global warming. Unfortunately this project will be set aside for some time. We had the option of choosing if we wanted to write a book made by our class or we could choose to write about something related to different competency goals. First I chose to write about global warming which was related to our geography class competency goal. I started writing and then I started thinking about how cool it had been to say that you have actually taken a part in writing a book. Therefore I started working on the book with mostly the rest of my class.

I am kind of sorry for the people that told me they looked forward to seeing the finished result of my article about global warming. One thing I can tell you now is that I will definitely finish the article about global warming, it is just that me and my class needs to finish the book project first. The reason for this “drastic” and spontaneous change is because we have gotten in contact with some publishers that are willing to publish our book for us. The only thing is that we have to deliver the hole script for the book by the first of April. Because of this I changed to the book project so I could help my class working on the book.

I am also trying to motivate myself to write more English. The more English I write the better I will become, right? Therefore I will be trying to write something on my blog every day the next week. By the way, in Norway (probably some other countries to) there is something called spring break. Our spring break is from the 16-24 of February. This is also one of the reasons why I will be trying to write one blog post every day the next week. Because I actually have time to do it.

How spare time affects your school day

If you wonder what this long text is about it is basically about what the headline tells you. If you wonder why i wrote it it’s because it is one of my small contributions to a book we are making in my school. Hope you like it

What is spare time and how does it affect your life/school?
The definition of spare time is the  time available for hobbies and other activities that you enjoy or the time that you have besides work. You probably thought that your spare time did not affect how you feel or behave at you school or in life. I can give you the simple answer “yes your spare time does actually affect how you perform in school” or you can keep reading for the more advanced description.

Usually people have something they look forward to when they get home from school. Like for example to play football,
basketball, Computer games, friends or even to watch TV. Every person is different and has his/her own activity that she likes to do. What most teachers and scientists you can find on the web say is that “People need free time to spend with friends, relax and have fun”. Students need to find appropriate, healthy activities and entertainment. Free time can teach them important skills they will need as adults. Unfortunately, too much free time can cause problems.  Teenagers who have too much free time usually get bored. What is most likely to happen is that these teenagers go looking for something to do. Usually it ends up with trouble and the  teenagers become involved in unhealthy, inappropriate or illegal activities which can definitely affect the persons life at school or life in general.

 Even thought something very catastrophic can happen with to much spare time there is still very many positive sides with spare time. Doing an activity that you really love in your spare time can free your thoughts and it can release very small doses of endorphins into your body making your day a little better. Having something to do in your spare time can and most likely will increase your satisfaction with life. Usually teenagers don’t look at school as something fun, this is why it is very positive to actually get some happy feelings throughout the day. Mainly what I am trying to say is that every person should have some activities in life they can look forward to. This will make it easier to get true the school days and it also makes you more awake in school since you’re a little happy. This is why I want teachers, parents or someone that cares for others to encourage other people  to start doing something like sports, exercise, play more with friends and so on.

Last but not least I will mention something about homework. By own experience homework has a big impact on a person spare time. Homework is a program that students usually get handed out in the beginning of the week so that they have something to work on at home. Mainly I face two problems with homework’s, the first thing is that the teachers is not at disposal which means you can’t get any help from them. In some school subjects like math, social studies and geography it is very hard to get some sort of helps from your parents and even the web can sometimes be confusing or not reliable. The second scenario is that some teachers tells us what the homework is but doesn’t check it the next time you are with that teacher. Teacher’s not checking their students homework could and usually turns out bad. Think about one student that works really hard at home and does one mistake several time, like for example writing they’re instead of their. This means that the teacher will not notice the student’s mistake unless their is a test that the teacher has to correct. By this time is to late and the student will probably not get the best grade because he or she had many mistakes like this. In general I would recommend longer school days where they have their teachers for disposal. I think this is much better then to be working effortless at home all the time getting distracted by Pc, TV, Facebook, Youtube and other activities at home.

 

The new project!

Today I started a new project that I will be working with the next couple of weeks. Today I was writing about the global warming and its effect on the earth. I didn’t finish writing about it so I must either write the rest at home or I will have to do it next time. Next time I will also write about what is causing the global warming and how/when global warming started. So as you can see I will be busy the next couple of weeks working on this project.  Currently what I am writing will turn into a lecture so to actually be able to finish the text I will probably have to work really hard to get done in time. You might ask yourself why is writing this one little lecture is going to need so much effort? Well, the reason is because I will get a grade on this plus I have to read out a book called “the book thief” (look at my last blog post) at the same time as I am writing this “little” lecture. Besides all this English homework I also have a spare time that is kind of limited because all the other homework we have but oh well. I want good grades and to achieve that I guess I have to work hard. Now you know what I have done today and will be doing later on in this month, glad you did actually read this and feel free to comment on my blog.